1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to networks, and more particularly to tracing paths of packets through a network.
2. Description of the Related Art
The industry is moving towards large layer-2 networks, using virtualized topologies such as fabrics, multi-chassis trunking (MCT) and virtual link aggregation groups (vLAG) to hide complexity. To debug these networks, the customer needs to uncover the complexity and trace the packet. However, this debugging is cumbersome and impractical today. This causes the customer to escalate the problems to the vendors. Studies have shown that very high percentages of these escalations involve packet loss and in each case the great majority of the time is spent identifying the culprit network node. Even for the vendors there is a lack of industry tools to easily debug layer-2 networks along the forwarding path as often multiple tools are needed to trace a single end-end layer-2 path. Indeed, there is no mechanism to locate layer-2 loops. The debugging is made more complicated because many problems have the same symptoms. Further, as the problems are present on production networks, no configuration changes can be done, there is live production background traffic and there is limited time to do the debugging.
Table 1 is a table of various debugging tools, their functionality and how specific situations are handled.
TABLE 1DebuggingBUM(Broadcast,BlackholeUnicast,ToolsFunctionalityL2 LoopsscenariosMulticast) treeEthernet OAMLink-trace toLimitedCannot traceLimited(Operations,trace L2 path.forwardingAdministration,Mainly usedpath hashedandbetween SP's.based uponMaintenance)packet headers(802.1ag/CFM(Connectivity FaultManagement))Brocade L2LimitedVDX: N/AVDX: Edge-VDX: NoTraceroutesupport forMLX: Limitedport forwardingsupporttracing L2not validatedMLX: Limitedpacket path,MLX: Does notspecific to avalidateproduct lineforwardingpathCiscoCDP (CiscoLimitedDoes not verifyDoes not coverTraceroute macDiscoveryforwardingfloodingProtocol)pathscenariobased, does notapply to virtualnetworksACL, SPAN &Common tools,OperatorOperatorImpractical in ainterfacebutshould knowshould knowfailure scenariostatisticscumbersome tothethetrace packetproblematicproblematicpathlink to capturelink to capturedatadataEdge LoopDetect loopsDetects, butMay detectFlooding loopsDetectionbased upon itsdoes not locateloops, but doesdetect, but notreturnednot locatelocateheartbeatTherefore it would be desirable to be able to more easily and completely debug packet flows in a network.